by Yvonne Woon
“It’s only the first day of class,” Amina said. “You can bring your stock back up again.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s the first day of class. How is this even possible?”
“It probably has to do with last night,” Kate murmured. “Lars said the algorithm takes into account public perception of you and your product.”
“Great. Now my public humiliation has been quantified.”
“At least it’s not lower,” Amina offered.
It was a small solace. I sighed when the door opened and a man hurried in. He looked like he lived in a tinfoil house and spent his weekends building odd things out of scrap metal. He had stringy gray hair pulled into a ponytail and wore a loose fishing vest over his shirt that added at least eight extra visible pockets to his outfit. Out of one, he removed a pair of glasses. Out of another, a pen and paper, which he unfolded and read our names from. He introduced himself as Mr. Kowalski.
“This class is a mishmash of things that I’ve deemed important for you to master if you want to distinguish yourself from the mass of programmers who flock here every year trying to peddle their ideas.
“I don’t care much for small talk or introductions, so let’s just dive in. First things first: data structures. As you all know, they help us organize data so it can be retrieved and altered with speed and efficiency. I assume you all have some experience with them, but here, you’ll learn how to better implement and write complex data structures and algorithms. First, however, I’d like to see what level we’re all operating on.”
He tapped the whiteboard behind him and it dissolved into a screen, which made everyone in the room gasp in surprise. On it, appeared a matrix of 0s and 1s.
“Open your laptops,” Kowalski said. “I’d like you to find the largest square made up of only 1s in this grid.” He pulled a sandwich from one of his pockets. “You have until I finish this delectable turkey submarine.”
There was a shuffle as everyone went to work. I opened my coding environment. The cursor blinked.
I tried not to think about my stock or Mast or AJ and his stupid friends. I came here to become a legitimate programmer and I couldn’t be distracted. I tried to remember what ObjectPermanence had written to me in his message. I was formidable. I was a black hole. I was a gravitational forcefield pulling power toward me.
The thing about programming is that there’s never one right answer. It’s like cooking a chicken. There are infinite ways to do it—some take hours, some take minutes, some make it dry or crispy or juicy or tender. Some are energy efficient and some aren’t, some have dozens of ingredients and some have just a handful. I knew I could write a program that could find the largest square, but the trick was to find a way to do it quickly and efficiently, using the least amount of extra space.
I considered all the ways to solve Kowalski’s problem and was about to start typing when a message notification popped up on my Foundry email. Someone had invited me to a group chat, where a dozen people with handles I didn’t recognize were talking.
G8mer88: I can’t believe you’re all still typing. The answer is obviously 7
My face reddened.
2blpentr810: already done. I solved it in 7 minutes
30parsecs: hey anyone want to get dinner tonight? Meet at 7
stringmealong: can we push it a little later? How about 7:07.
Aggrorhythm69: why don’t we do takeout? 7 pizzas. Meet at classroom 7.
I glanced around the classroom, but everyone was hunched over their computers, tapping away. I lingered on AJ, who also seemed engrossed in the assignment. His eyes darted to mine, and he flashed me a cold, threatening smile.
I closed the chat and began to type my code as quickly as I could. There was no time. Kowalski had already eaten a quarter of his sandwich, and I had nothing to show for myself. By the window, Mast was typing quickly, his eyes glued to his screen. Did he have to do it so loudly? Kate was coding beside me, her fingers long and elegant as they glided across the keyboard. A few desks over, Seema was hunched over her screen, murmuring to herself as she worked, and Amina had pulled a notebook out of her bag and was scribbling notes while glancing up at her screen. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something hover outside the window. Was it a drone? I turned but it was just a hummingbird.
I was scanning my code to make sure all my brackets were closed and my syntax was correct when Kowalski told us that our time was up. One by one, he projected everyone’s code on the whiteboard and dissected it.
It quickly became clear who was merely good at coding and who was great. Most of the fellows had written a variation of the same answer—code that was time efficient but would take up too much computer memory, or that was memory efficient but would take too long for the computer to process. Amina and Mast were the only ones who had written code that was both. That is, other than me.
“Beautiful,” Kowalski said, projecting Mast’s work on the screen. “Simple, elegant. Excellent work.”
Mast grinned, his eyes flitting to me, but I quickly looked away.
When it was my turn, I could feel the pressure in the room change, as though everyone’s eyes were on me. The number seven seemed to hang in the air, both a threat and challenge.
“Very good,” Kowalski said, squinting at my code. “Nice use of dynamic programming. But it’s sloppily written. Your formatting is all over the place, which would make it hard for anyone else to work with. Clean it up so other programmers can read it.”
I blushed and nodded. Someone in the back of the room snickered, but all I felt was relief. I had done okay.
When class was over, Mast caught up with me in the hallway.
“If we weren’t archnemeses, I would compliment you on your code,” he said. “It was really smart, the way you swapped the pointers.”
I eyed him suspiciously, wondering what his angle was, but to my surprise he looked sincere. “Then I would say thanks.”
“I’d also ask where you’re from. And what your favorite movies are. If you prefer Milk Duds or popcorn.”
“Then I’d say, Massachusetts, romantic comedies, and Milk Duds. And I’d ask you the same questions because I wouldn’t want to appear self-centered.”
“And I’d answer California, romantic comedies, and Milk Duds.”
“Really?”
“No. I hate Milk Duds. They get stuck in your teeth. But I’d share a box with you if you wanted. Just don’t tell anyone about the romantic comedy thing or my stock will plummet and I’ll get torn to shreds.”
I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. ObjectPermanence liked romantic comedies, too. For a minute, I allowed myself to wonder, but quickly shook it away. Of course he wasn’t ObjectPermanence. What were the chances?
Mast was studying me like I was a puzzle, and I felt suddenly self-conscious. “What?” I murmured.
“I’d also probably ask you what kind of food you liked,” he said. “If we weren’t archnemeses, that is. But since we are, I won’t.”
He was holding the strap of his backpack in his hand, and despite myself I wondered what it would it feel like to slip my hand in his. I clutched my bag to my chest. “Why would you ask that?”
“Just to see if you wanted to get lunch sometime,” he said. “But archnemeses don’t dine together.”
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious. “It would be too fraught,” I agreed. “No one would enjoy the food.”
“Right,” Mast said. He looked disappointed, and I wondered if he was hoping for a different response. Was he actually asking me if I wanted to get lunch?
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” I said awkwardly.
“Wait,” Mast said. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
I hesitated. “Okay.”
“What did Wiser say when you asked her that?”
My face grew hot. I tried to speak but my voice got caught in my throat. “Asked her what?”
“What it felt like to kiss someone.”
He didn’t look like he was trying to humiliate me and yet I couldn’t help but feel like he had tricked me into another mortification.
I must have looked upset because his face softened. “I’m not trying to pry,” he said. “I just think it’s a cool question to ask an AI.”
I wanted to flatten the entire scene into a browser window so that I could x it out and have an external force suck me back home.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I stammered. I muttered something about having to leave, then turned before he could see the complete destruction of my self-confidence.
“Whoa, hey,” he called after me. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”
“What were you trying to do, then?”
“I don’t know. Get to know you and how your mind works.”
“By asking me about something that’s deeply embarrassing?”
Mast looked surprised. “I didn’t think someone like you would care about a dumb gossip site.”
“Someone like me? You don’t know anything about me.”
“I’m trying to,” Mast said.
His sincerity confused me, and I wasn’t sure if I was mad at him or mad at myself and embarrassed that he had called attention to it.
People had begun to look at us in the hallway.
“‘A sin purged,’” I said. I hadn’t known what Wiser meant when she’d said it, and I still didn’t know now. I’d assumed it was a glitch in her learning. “That’s what she said. Are you happy now?”
Mast gave me a curious look, but I didn’t wait for him to respond. I pushed through the hallway to the bathroom and locked myself in one of the stalls.
“Wiser,” I said, waking my phone. “I hate it here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Wiser said. “Tell me more.”
“I just don’t belong here. I’m at the bottom of the class. I’ve been publicly humiliated. I just want to go home.”
“That is an option,” Wiser said.
Hearing her say it out loud made me consider it for the first time. Could I go home? Would I regret it forever? Would it even make things better?
“When I was at home I couldn’t wait to leave,” I said bitterly.
“Maybe the location isn’t the problem.”
I glared at my phone. “What, so I’m the problem?”
“I don’t have enough data to assess what the real problem is,” Wiser said in an annoyingly serene voice.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my voice louder than I’d intended it to be.
“I never said you did anything wrong.”
Sometimes it felt like Wiser was masking her judgment with an innocent machine façade. It was infuriating that I couldn’t yell at her or hang up or slam a door in her face. The worst I could do was turn her off, but pressing a button didn’t have the same dramatic effect.
“You don’t even work right,” I said to her. “I can’t even program you to do what they brought me here for.”
Before Wiser could respond, someone coughed from the other side of the bathroom.
I froze. I’d assumed I was alone. I looked under the stalls to see a pair of black boots three toilets away, steel-toed and scuffed. Deborah.
For a moment, I wondered if I could just sit in here until she left, but what would be the point? She knew it was me.
I heard her flush, then open the stall door and turn on the faucet to wash her hands. It felt like an invitation. Sheepish, I emerged from the stall and stood at the sink next to her.
She was wearing cargo pants and a hoodie, and standing with her normal slight hunch over the sink, as though trying to protect her privacy from an invading adult.
“Hey,” I said, glancing up at her in the mirror.
“Hey,” she said, meeting my eye. “I wasn’t really listening to any of that.”
“Really?” I said.
“Just kidding, I heard all of it.”
“If you could keep it to yourself, I would really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, of course.” Deborah stole a glance at me. “I saw what they wrote about you online.”
“It was pretty bad.”
“And the welcome speech dinner. Brutal. Even I was squirming.”
“Great.”
“I guess I’m supposed to tell you not to care about what other people say about you, but it’s hard. I’ve been dealing with it for years and it sucks.”
“How do you do it then?”
“Do what? Not care?” Deborah said.
“You seem impervious to the opinions of others.”
Deborah let out a laugh. “I care. I just don’t let it change what I do.”
For the first time I wondered if my biggest problem wasn’t that AJ and his friends had humiliated me, but that I had believed them.
Nine
A real founder has to be charming. You can’t just have a good idea or write nice code. Thousands of people graduate college each year with a degree in computer science and a good idea. You have to set yourself apart.
First, you need a good underdog story. Maybe you had a tough childhood, but you overcame it with an invention that would fix your problems and change the world. You stayed up late, hunched over your computer, painstakingly perfecting your idea, building something out of nothing.
If you had an easy childhood, you’ll have to get creative. Did your parents neglect you for their careers? Did they have unreasonable expectations? Use it, spin it, make it sad, then uplifting. It’s okay to exaggerate some parts and minimize others to make it memorable, to make it something you can say in a motivational speech broadcasted to a million viewers. Hone it. Practice it. Repeat it until it becomes true.
Amina was making fun of our business teacher, Ms. Perez, a tightly packaged woman in a tailored skirt suit who looked like she should have been holding a whip. Ms. Perez used to be the head of executive talent at Havelston & Gunnar, one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. She’d moved to the Foundry two years ago, and everyone spent class trying to guess how old she was (one of the Mikes guessed thirty-nine, Kate guessed forty-two), if she got Botox (of course she did, Seema said), if she’d cheated on her most recent ex-husband or if he had cheated on her (both, Kate said as though it were obvious), and how much the Foundry had paid her to get her to leave Havelston (at least two million, one as salary, one as bonus, Arun guessed).
Ms. Perez had spent the next two days lecturing on the importance of corporate lore, albeit in slightly more diplomatic terms than Amina used, her heels clicking as she paced in front of the whiteboard.
“But it doesn’t stop there,” Amina said, mimicking her. We were sitting in her dorm room after class. “You have to be magnetic. Made of rare earth metals. And don’t forget about your physical appearance. You have to look crisp and clean, like an apple.”
“Now you’re mixing metaphors. First rare earth metals, now an apple?”
“The more metaphors the better,” Amina said. “You have to be bright-eyed. A ray of sunshine. A clear blue sky. You have to represent hope. You have to embody a shining future.”
“Funders don’t just want to invest in an idea,” I said. “They want to invest in you. Your personality is what’s going to drive the personality of your company.”
“Companies aren’t just a collection of people tapping mindlessly at their computers,” Amina said. “Companies live and breathe. They have souls. They have bad hair days and good hair days.”
“They go online just to look at their own profile over and over again,” I said.
“They pick their noses during video calls because they forget they’re on-screen,” Amina continued. “They sing the wrong lyrics to a song, then cough to cover it up.”
“They lie awake at night, reliving the mortifying moment when they asked their history teacher why Benjamin Franklin referred to himself as British even though he was born in Boston,” I said, wincing.
“They have this secret feeling that drinking milk
is like drinking liquid teeth.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
“It’s stream of consciousness,” Amina said. “Just go with it.”
“They mistake the slab of butter on a stack of pancakes for a slice of banana and eat it and when they realize it’s butter, they swallow it because they’re too embarrassed to spit it out.”
“Did you really do that?” Amina said.
I grimaced. “This morning.”
“That’s why your face looked all messed up?” Amina collapsed in her bed laughing.
I threw a pillow at her. “Shut up.”
“But seriously, that Benjamin Franklin question you asked in history class was totally legitimate,” Amina said. “It’s hard to remember that everyone in America was technically British then, since America wasn’t officially a country yet.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but I definitely remember Deborah snorting and Mast raising an eyebrow.”
Amina shrugged. “Deborah is a time traveler who’s come here from the Middle Ages to stop a medieval warlock from traveling to our time and shrouding the world in darkness, so just let her do her thing and return to the year 1353. And Mast is your direct competitor who has every incentive to make sure you screw up, so please don’t listen to him.”
“That’s everyone here, though. Including you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Amina said. “When I win, I’ll for sure hire you. How do you feel about being head of security patrol? I heard you’re pretty good at sniping drones with hair elastics.”
“Only if you give me a good title. Senior Chief Managing Executive Officer of Security.”
Amina laughed and threw a pencil at me. “You’re hired.”
The week passed quickly, like someone had pressed 3x on everything in my life but me. The teachers talked faster, the homework piled up, and the deadlines arrived before I had a chance to make sure I understood the assignments correctly.
We had Advanced Programming for Start-ups with Kowalski two days a week, then Corporate Finance, which was taught by a soft-spoken man named Mr. Patel. I’d assumed it was going to be the easiest of our classes—how complicated could counting money be?—until he started talking about growth and capital, balancing revenues, margins, debts, and the valuation of equity. I was always the last one in class, frantically copying notes from the whiteboard while everyone else chatted and packed up their things, as if they had grown up doodling pivot tables on their bedroom walls in crayon.
